Leonarda Jonie: Woman of the Year

On the 21st of March, 2024, I kept seeing the same avatar popping up on my X timeline and wondered, “Who the hell is Leonarda Jonie?” I first talked to her that very day.

Before she popped up on my timeline, Leonarda was an established comedian from Austin. She was a regular on the comedy podcast circuit and was known enough that Sam Hyde invited her to be his opening act for one of his Texas shows. She had 18,000 X followers, which she built up from standup alone.

Since embarking on a standup career in 2019, Leonarda, a former liberal, began a gradual redpill journey into White Nationalism, and this was reflected in her standup material which became increasingly “based.” Eventually, “the scene” took notice.

I initially reached out to Leonarda to see if she would like to do an interview for Counter-Currents. A pro-white standup. That’s got some novelty value.

But after talking to her for a bit, I thought “You know what? Counter-Currents might be too hot for you. I’m not sure I want to hurt your mainstream potential by associating you with an outlet that’s monitored by the ADL. I don’t want Antifa showing up at your shows because you did an interview with us.” (Eventually, she did appear on Counter-Currents Radio several times: here, here, and here.)

Instead, I welcomed Leonarda into the scene, and as a scene vet, I gave her some pointers on how to navigate the Right-wing space and how to avoid long-term headaches. My main pieces of advice were:

• Don’t talk about violence. Not even as a joke.
• Don’t use racial slurs.
• Stay away from Nazi stuff. I know everyone else is doing it, but trust me on this one.
• Try to stay independent. You will get sucked into movement infighting if you become too closely associated with any particular faction.

I’ve seen enough hit pieces to know what kinds of quotes will haunt you for years afterwards, and the rivalries and shifting alliances of Right-wing Internet can be daunting. So that was my advice for a newcomer.

Little did I know at the time, I was talking to future White Nationalist royalty.

Within two days of entering the White Nationalist space, Leonarda’s following on X grew by 1/3, from 18,000 to 24,000. Within a matter of days, her White Nationalist followers had come to outnumber the followers she acquired from standup. Within a few months, she was approaching 100,000 and appearing on InfoWars.

These are Leonarda’s first tweets to go viral:

Leonarda and Barry Stanton were among the first to popularize poking fun at Indians who had previously been something of an afterthought. On Indian Nationalist Twitter she has become something a hate figure, just as we see Jonathan Greenblatt.

That fall, Leonarda’s Twitter was banned. She went on Alex Jones’s show to protest. She got it back a few days later and sent me a message saying, “Thanks for telling me to stay away from the Nazi stuff.” It was apparently helpful towards getting her account back to not have Nazi stuff in her record.

Today, she has 258,000 followers on X and 328,000 subscribers on her even more successful YouTube channel, which makes her one of the most popular White Nationalists on the Internet. All this in just 19 months.

Leonarda—I realize that I keep calling her by her first name only; I do not do so out of familiarity but because she has achieved a status like Madonna where she can just go by one name—is a new type of White Nationalist because she presents herself as an entertainer first and foremost rather than a “thought leader.”

There are a lot of advantages of having more of this kind of White Nationalist around. One of the things that impressed me about Leonarda is her ability to get platformed in places that would normally never platform a White Nationalist without having to pull her punches. Like Jimmy Dore, who is more closely associated with the Bernie Left, or Rosanne Barr (yes, THAT Rosanne Barr) who had Leonarda on her podcast. Or how Alex Jones has her on his show despite her being fully woke in the Jews. Gavin, who is a remorseless gatekeeper of the JQ nonetheless gave Leonarda a show on Compound Censored.

There is probably a not insignificant number of  like Barr and Dore who may not be White Nationalists themselves but can appreciate edgy humor. Having more Leonarda-style entertainer-activists would help us reach people like that.

One of Leonarda’s advantages is that she trained for a career in mainstream entertainment and developed her persona on the stage rather than the internet, and so she does not come off like your typical internet figure. She does not sound like anyone else in the movement and puts things we may have heard a million times in novel ways.

I would like to see Leonarda succeed so that a standup to White Nationalist pipeline could develop. The movement has plenty of intellectuals and history nerds. We need more entertainers.

White Nationalism is coming out of its counter-culture phase and entering its mainstream era.

On top of this, pro-whites are nearing the top of the talking head ladder. With Nick Fuentes appearing on Tucker Carlson, what’s left? We still haven’t had one of /OurGuys/ on Joe Rogan or Bill Maher. But we will, and then what?

After we have won the political sphere, the next step will be moving into the cultural sphere. If you want to see pro-white movies, we need redpilled actors and redpilled directors who actually went to film school. Podcasters should not be trying to do this stuff by themselves.

There’s the usual conundrum that what is mainstream accessible is not always credible. Lilly Gaddis is nice to look at and has a lot of followers, but she is not respected as an intellectual by anyone serious. On the other hand, Keith Woods is respected as an intellectual, but he’s not someone you’d put on morning shock jock radio.

Leonarda is a rare combination of accessible and credible. She can appear on Alex Jones and more mainstream platforms, as well as Counter-Currents and Millenniyule. She also spoke at AmRen. She has amassed large a following on X with her writing and YouTube with her audio-visual content. That is impressive versatility.

Leonarda Jonie is my pick for who to watch going into 2026.

https://counter-currents.com/2026/01/leonarda-jonie-woman-of-the-year